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A new survey of Riverside County residents finds they are worried about the
region's economy and ability to provide jobs, as well as population growth and infrastructure needs.
Dr. Martin Johnson, UCR Associate Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the UCR Survey Research Center, summarized the survey findings at the June 19 Randall
Lewis Seminar Series.
Among the survey findings:
--Riverside County residents perceive economic
difficulties. Forty-six percent of respondents say they
are financially worse off today than they were a year
ago.
--County residents do not see the economy improving
soon. Forty-four percent said they think the economy
will be about the same as it is now in a year and
another 16 percent said they think the economy will get
worse.
--Problems with the housing market have personally
affected many people in the county. Forty-four percent
of survey respondents indicate that either they or
someone they know lost their home in the current
foreclosure crisis.
--Riverside County residents are more supportive of
providing relief to borrowers than to lenders.
Forty-eight percent indicated they thought "people who
are having difficulty making their mortgage payments
should receive special treatment that would prevent them
from losing their home." Only 20 percent of respondents
supported providing help to financial institutions to
"prevent them from losing money on those mortgages."
--Traffic congestion is more of a problem for western
Riverside county residents than it is in the eastern
portion of the county. Traffic congestion on freeways
and major roads was somewhat of a problem or a big
problem to 93 percent of western Riverside respondents.
Among eastern Riverside county respondents, that number
is 76 percent.
--Similarly, population growth is viewed as a bigger
problem in the western part of the county than the
eastern portion of the county. In the western portion of
the county, 74 percent of respondents said population
growth and development was somewhat of a problem or a
big problem, compared to 63 percent of respondents in
the eastern part of the county.
The Blakely Center commissioned the survey,
in coordination with the Riverside County Center for
Demographic Research, the Coachella Valley Association
of Governments, the Western Riverside Council of
Governments, and the Riverside County Transportation and
Land Management Agency.
Researchers at the UCR Survey Research Center
conducted the survey by telephone using a
random-digit-dial sample of Riverside County households,
from April 8-May 14.
More than 750 county residents participated in the
survey, which has a margin of error of ±3.6 percent, with a 95%
confidence interval.
For the purpose of the survey, the western
part of the county was defined as respondents residing in the (951)
or (909) area codes, and the eastern portion of the
county to include respondents with a (760) area code
telephone number.
Complete
Riverside County Survey Report (pdf, 7.61MB)
Dr. Martin Johnson's
Survey Presentation (pdf, 0.97MB)
Study Will Focus on Link Between Urban Design, Sustainability
Center Awarded $154,000
Haynes Foundation Grant
The Edward J. Blakely Center for Sustainable Suburban Development has been awarded a $154,452 grant for a two-year study on the link between urban design and sustainability.
The study, called “The Hope of New Urbanism: Energy Conservation and Sustainability through Urban Design,” will be funded through a grant from the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation.
The study will investigate whether New Urbanism residential design increases energy efficiency by reducing the number of miles driven and commutes. New Urbanism, an urban design movement first appearing in the early 1980s, encourages a mix of housing and jobs within “walkable” communities, often close to mass transit and everyday amenities.
“Specifically, we are interested in whether residential design can lower energy consumption and help control pollution as New Urbanism has claimed,” said Dr. Juliann Allison, Associate Professor of Political Science at UCR and the principal investigator for the project. Allison also is Associate Director of the Blakely Center.
Co-Principal Investigators for the study will be Dr. Matthew Barth, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Director of the Center for Environmental Research and Technology (CE-CERT); and Dr. Martin Johnson, Associate Professor of Political Science and Co-Director of the UCR Survey Research Center.
The project will analyze the commuting behaviors of residents in two communities – Playa Vista in West Los Angeles, and the Dos Lagos community in Corona. A phase one mail and phone survey of selected residents in both communities will be asked questions regarding factors that influenced their move, the extent to which they use live/work amenities built into their homes, and whether they take advantage of shopping, dining and entertainment available in their community. Residents also will be asked about their daily vehicle use and energy/gasoline consumption.
The study also will include complex traffic modeling by CE-CERT of newer residents in the two communities to determine if commute habits change from move-in through several fixed points in time over a six-month period. Respondents will log daily trips and point of origin and destination.
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